The Democrats of the Texas congressional delegation are loudly protesting the Texas state legislature’s new congressional redistricting proposal, calling it a Republican attempt to illegally minimize minority representation in Congress.

Rep. Gene Green (Meredith McDermott / Hearst Newspapers)

“Despite the fact that Texas’s minority population has grown substantially over the past decade, becoming the state’s majority population, the Republican proposed map suppresses their influence,” the nine Democrats said in a joint statement. “These efforts by Republicans are nothing more than a concerted attempt to deny every Texan the power of one-person, one-vote over the next decade.”

The Democrats also stated that since the minority population growth in Texas caused the state to gain its four new congressional seats, the new map should reflect reality and provide more representation for minorities.

“The Voting Rights Act requires that if you can draw a minority district, then you should do that. Before the Voting Rights Act, districting was focused on excluding minorities,” Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, said.

The map, according to Green, only draws one additional minority district, when the Texas redistricting committee could draw more.

“The map released the earlier this week doesn’t reflect the growth in Texas’ population,” he said. “New seats ought to reflect that new growth in minority population. That’s why there will be more lawsuits.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (AP photo)

The lawsuits, Green explained, are largely based in the Voting Rights Act’s requirement for minority districts to be drawn where they can be.

“I support an additional Hispanic district in Houston,” Green added. “State Rep. Carol Alvarado has proposed this district in an amendment to the redistricting map…But it will probably be voted down on a partisan vote, so when the lawsuits happen, we’ll have that.”

“The biggest percent of increase was Hispanic, African American, and Asian. If you follow the law, we’ll have diversity, or at least one-person, one-vote and due process,”

Jackson Lee said that as it stands now, voters in Texas will have their votes thwarted under the proposed map.

Rep. Charlie Gonzalez (CHCI photo)

“I hope we can find a way to make this plan right—it is not right now. The people of Texas have a right to vote for the person of their choosing, and that is not the plan right now,” she said.

“I can start by asking whoever is responsible for making that map if they can spell ‘retrogression,’” Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, said of the map. “If they can’t understand the word, they better understand the legal concept.”

Gonzalez said that he thinks that the map is destined for the courts, and said it invites judicial scrutiny.

“I figure that we end up in court in light of the fact that this Republican-led state legislation would do all in its power to blunt the increasing political power of the growing Latino population,” he said.